May 28, 2006

My son John puts a lot of effort into scanning old family photographs, which he uploads to Flickr. Here's one of me, studying for my last law school exam:

My last law school exam was Federal Courts, which was also the first subject I taught as a lawprof.

Can you tell that I had not gone near a professional haircutter in many years? Can you believe that those glasses were entirely fashionable in 1981, the year the photo was taken? Don't laugh! The glasses you're wearing right now will look stupid in a quarter of a century.

Anyone who needs a strong prescription has to be glad that small frames are in style. I usually wear contacts, but my prescription is strong and would get really thick at the edges if the lenses were large. It looks awful.

Cute photo. All glasses look stupid. Big Optometry just fools everybody into thinking they don't. (I myself wear glasses. They are very modern and fashionable. And they still look stupid.) For women, though, glasses can be a cool accessory because when they take them off it's shocking and hot.

Ah, 1981. Where were you in 81? 1981 changed my life. It was the year Raiders of the Lost Ark came out. I saw it and decided to become an archeologist. A decade later, in college, my dreams were shattered when I learned that the archeology department offered no courses on bullwhips or Nazi ass-kicking. I cursed archeology and the movies, quit college, and became a drifter. Now I wander the wasteland looking for guzzolene and helping people out of jams.

Brendan, nor is it their job to make it needlessly more difficult than it has to be. I've ridden this horse before, and since I've graduated it's purely academic for me, but (1) note-taking via laptop is no different than by pen & paper except that some people find it easier to do so (especially those of us will less than stellar penmanship), (2) laptops are no more distracting than the student newspaper crossword that students do when laptops aren't available, and (3) if professors' lectures were an actual value added, instead of something you're forced to attend because of ABA mandated attendance policies, we wouldn't be having the argument.

Today's student is smarter and more capable than yesterday's student at assimilating data. The slow, plodding pace of law school lends itself to whatever distractions one can get one's hands on. Cure the problem, not the symptoms.

John, this is law school, not stenography class. I could rationalize any number of outside devices as so-called "learning aides." It doesn't change the fact that the prof runs the show. Concerned about taking copius notes? Bring a tape recorder to class and cross-check your written notes on your own time. Lord knows I did. If Amtrak can install silent cars, certainly there's room for silent classes. And yes, 30 students furiously typing at once is a distraction.

Most of my students use laptops and I've never noticed any sound of typing. What about the sound of pens and pencils scratching away at paper? Really there isn't a whole lot of noise. The most distractingly noisy item is the ring binder, by the way. When you're trying to get to the last few things at the end of the class and the students start clicking ring binders, it's nerve-wracking. The second worst noise problem is students coming in late, which is also a visual distraction.

Here's a sort of dweebish comment, but there's some substance as well. In that photo, the white balance is pretty far off, which has the effect of make it seem older, more historical. In the original verison, 1981 seems a long time ago, with the colors corrected, it feels more like yesterday:

Wicked: Sorry. Some of that just went top far. I'm not mad at you, but...

Slocum: That's an old film camera, acting like a film camera under incandescent light.

Brendan: A was "H" at NYU in those days. "H" for "honors," and yeah, I did get that, even with a new baby.

Ruth Anne: The grandma with the nylons at Christmas was my father's mother, Elsa Tausig Althouse. She died in the 1970s. Only one great-grandmother was alive when John was born, and that was Pauline Fiddle, my ex-husband's mother's mother. She died not long after that picture was taken. She was in no position to help. My mother-in-law Jean did babysit a little. But my ex-husband Richard was the main support then. He was a full-time parent.

Slocum: That's an old film camera, acting like a film camera under incandescent light.

Yes, though it doesn't have anything to do with it being an old camera. With film, you need 'tungsten' film for artificial light if you want true colors. If you use 'daylight' film, the images come out yellow when shot under artificial incandescent lighting.

But when you scan, there's no particular reason NOT to make the colors true-to-life (as they would have been if the original photographer had shot with tungsten film). Unless, of course, you want the yellow to give a feeling of age.

Dump the glasses and contacts, get yourself the Mother's Day gift you'll love forever and kick yourself for not getting sooner.

LASIK!

I wores glasses since the 5th grade, got contacts in 1969, wore them for 30 years, reverted to glasses when my eyes could no longer tolerate contacts, then had LASIK surgery 5 years ago. I was scared shitless but see 20/20 now. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. Still need reading glasses though but I don't care because I CAN SEE the individual blades of grass again with my naked eyeball!

Actually, those aren't the Annie Hall magenta things. They really are brown, and they were bought at what was the most fashionable eyeglass store on the East Side of Manhattan at the time, in about 1980.

I use the big frames from the 80's to watch TV when I am lying in bed. I looked very hard for them and found them in a small town opticians shop and had single vision lenses put in. At my age I deserve every luxury I can think of. With the acrylic lenses they are not nearly as thick as they were back in the day. I also had a pair made into sunglasses, but with bifocals.

I'm with lawgiver: LASIK is a freeking miracle. Got mine 20 years ago and it's been incredibly liberating. I can't imagine anyone regretting it. Like few other things, it's worth a hundred times what it cost.